Death in Disguise

Death in Disguise is a crime novel by Caroline Graham, the third in her popular Chief Inspector Barnaby series, which has been adapted into the successful ITV drama Midsomer Murders.

Plot summary

In a country manor house currently owned by a New Age cult of mystics, the mysterious death of member William Carter stirs all the local gossips into a frenzy of speculation. However, the rumours of sinister events are confirmed when the so-called Master of the Lodge dies after somebody throws a knife his way during a psychic regression.

Meanwhile, untrustworthy financier Guy Gamelin tries reconciling with his estranged, cultist daughter Sylvia, now called Suhami, and Chief Inspector Barnaby finds himself lost amidst a labyrinthine puzzle of deception, evil and pseudo-supernatural forces.

Publication history

• United Kingdom: 1992, Headline, London, 1992, Hardback, 374 p., ISBN 0-7472-0608-2.
• United States: 1993, Morrow, New York City, 1993, Hardback, 333 p., ISBN 0-688-09985-8.

Television adaptation

The novel was adapted into the fifth episode of Midsomer Murders starring (alongside regulars John Nettles and Daniel Casey) Judy Cornwell, Miles Anderson, Charles Kay, Stephen Moyer and Geoffrey Beevers.

The main location used is Nether Winchendon House in Buckinghamshire.

At the end, Inspector Barnaby shows his compassion by deliberately not prosecuting a young disabled boy or the adult who has acted to protect the boy, as well as his lack of compassion by exposing to a reporter that two of the former suspects were former brothelkeepers (after promising them that he wasn't a "gossip" and wouldn't tell anyone).